Be sure your donation button works and leads to an easy-to-navigate donation page.

Check your sign-up page: is it clear, simple, and adaptable across devices?

Are your social media sharing buttons simple to use?

Make a plan. Set up an editorial calendar for six months or a year. For each regularly scheduled post, include a note about which audience segment it will reach, where they are on their journey, and what you will ask them to do.

In this way, one glance will tell you whether you’re covering all segments of your audience and increasing engagement at all levels.

Key Takeaway: In each post, call your audience to take one action to engage more deeply with you.

Ask and you shall receive

You don’t move your audience into more engagement just because it’s the thing to do. You also move them in order to meet the needs of your organization.

Does that sound a bit self-serving? It isn’t when your mission meets the needs of others. Ideally, your blog does, too. Readers should feel so educated by your content, or so moved by your story, or so outraged/saddened/troubled, that they want to do something now. And that something they do should meet your need.

Link your call to action with a desired outcome

Let’s look at how a nonprofit animal shelter called Tomorrow’s Pets might plan a post. First they think about what they need. Then they think about where their audience is coming from. Next, they aim their post to meet an inner need of their audience. It could look like this: